Rørbye studied painting at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts for just under ten years.

[3] Rørbye became a fashionable artist through selling paintings to the Danish royal family, and by numerous commissions by the middle classes of Copenhagen for portraits set in interiors.

[4] View from the Artist's Window was made as Rørbye was about to leave his childhood home—a time when his ideas about art were changing through his studies with Eckersberg and the influence of Romanticism.

The window open towards the light; the ships in the harbour on their way to foreign destinations symbolize the longing for an unknown calling; the cage with the imprisoned bird above the window occupies a transitional position between the inside and the world outside the parental home, in this case a prison for the artist longing to explore the world outside.

A sketchbook with empty pages – also placed on the windowsill – is waiting to be filled, while the inside of the room where the artist is painting is reflected in the oval mirror hanging in the window.